It’s that time of year again, when Christians celebrate god sacrificing himself to himself to save mankind from himself. Let’s look at some of the insanity behind it all.

The timing of Easter tracks with (or used to, at least) Passover, another celebration of the Abrahamic god’s apparent bloodlust. The Exodus story tied to the Passover celebration is a myth, with no basis in historical reality. What’s even more bizarre to any person with a conscience and an iota of critical thinking, is the Jewish commemoration of an event in which a cruel and indiscriminate god murders innocent Egyptian children. To compound all the nonsense, the Passover observation wasn’t even original to the slavery myth, but was an ancient festival appropriated by Judahite propagandists:

This celebration is found only in the Priestly source. Just as P grounded the Sabbath in the creation story, so it grounds the Passover in the story of the exodus. The Passover was probably originally a rite of spring, practiced by shepherds. In early Israel it was a family festival. . . . The celebration was changed by the reform of King Josiah in 621 B.C.E. into a pilgrimage festival, to be celebrated at the central sanctuary (Jerusalem) and was combined with the Festival of Unleavened Bread.

Easter, then, builds off the Passover feast, which, as most Christians overlook, was the Last Supper. John 13, however, puts the Last Supper a day earlier, in order to cast Jesus in the starring role as the sacrificial lamb of Passover.

Emperor Constantine, at the Council of Nicaea in 325 (where the Trinity Doctrine was proclaimed orthodox in addition to the other bullshit which follows), made the extremely intolerant comment:

It is unbecoming that on the holiest of festivals we should follow the customs of the Jews; henceforth let us have nothing in common with this odious people.

This from the guy Christian propagandists claim made Christianity the official religion of the Roman Empire when he signed the Edict of Milan in 313, ironically an edict of religious toleration, which put a stop to the Diocletian persecution of Christians.

And so, Passover and Easter were forever decoupled; and human memory being short-term and highly selective, many Christians fail to recognize the original connection.

Moving on, the resurrection stories in the four Gospels don’t even gel in their respective accounts. Go figure, the Bible is inconsistent; who would have thought? The accounts differ in who went to the tomb, who they met, and what happened after.

Mark originally ends at 16:8, with the women (Mary Magdalene, Mary the mother of James, and Salome) fleeing in terror:

[T]hey saw a young man, dressed in a white robe, sitting on the right side; and they were alarmed. But he said to them, “Do not be alarmed; you are looking for Jesus of Nazareth, who was crucified. He has been raised; he is not here. Look, there is the place they laid him. But go, tell his disciples and Peter that he is going ahead of you to Galilee; there you will see him, just as he told you.” So they went out and fled from the tomb, for terror and amazement had seized them; and they said nothing to anyone, for they were afraid.

One wonders, if the women said nothing, how did the tale spread? Scholars believe the remainder of the verses in Mark 16 were added by a later editor to correct this blatant oversight.

In Matthew, the women are Mary Magdalene and the other Mary—what the hell happened to Salome?—and this time, it’s an angel, not a young man, who greets them. The women go and tell the disciples, then Jesus appears, and they go back to Galilee where Jesus appears again

In Luke, the women aren’t even named, and it’s not one man they meet, it’s two. The women go and tell the disciples, who don’t believe the story, so Peter goes to the tomb to see for himself, but then just goes home and says nothing.

In John, Mary Magdalene goes alone, sees the stone is moved and runs to get Peter and John (the other disciple, the one whom Jesus loved). They didn’t understand what they saw, so they just went home. Then, Mary Magdalene is greeted by two angels . . . and Jesus.

To top off all the Gospel inconsistencies, is the sheer impossibility of resurrection, or as Celsus put it in the second century:

But we must examine this question whether anyone who really died ever rose again with the same body . . . But who saw this? A hysterical female, as you say, and perhaps some other one of those who were deluded by the same sorcery, who either dreamt in a certain state of mind and through wishful thinking had a hallucination due to some mistaken notion (an experience which has happened to thousands), or, which is more likely, wanted to impress others by telling this fantastic tale, and so by this cock-and-bull story to provide a chance for other beggars.

I will let draw your own conclusions as to the magnitude of the last two thousand years of Western history being shaped by the delusion of a hysterical woman. Fast forward to today with chocolate bunnies and coloured eggs. What the hell, enjoy the long weekend!